Do Australian graziers have an offset mindset about their farm trees?

Abstract

Worldwide, the footprint of agriculture is higher than that of any other land use, making the local decisions of millions of farmers a global force for achieving the maintenance of ecosystem services. Biodiversity offsets are increasingly used to attempt to reconcile conflicts between production and conservation. Offset policies operate on the principle of habitat substitutability, but little work has considered whether those targeted by such policies perceive nature that way. For instance, do landholders perceive trees of different arrangements, ages or species to be interchangeable? We used a large-scale landholder survey to understand how graziers manage their farm trees, and whether their beliefs are amenable to substitution. Three natural clusters were found, that: (A) liked a tidy farm but did not differentiate trees by species, age or arrangement; (B) strongly supported the need for diversity in tree cover; and, (C) preferred woodlands and connective strips to sparse trees. Those positions were consistent with their beliefs about the costs and benefits of different arrangements of trees, but were largely inconsistent with their declared tree planting and protection activities. Tree management activities were more easily explained by commodity (pro-woodland graziers (C) were most likely to be cropping) or by career stage and what that meant for time and money resources to do conservation work (contrasting A and B). Offset policies and policy incentives encouraging vegetative heterogeneity would motivate at least these first two clusters, helping to sustain a diversity of tree cover and thus ecosystem services on farms.Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (

Environmental determinants of the old oaks in wood-pastures from a changing traditional social–ecological system of Romania

“…Large old trees are biological legacies, representing biological and ecological continuity of genetic resources and habitats for a variety of organisms (e.g., Manning et al 2006Manning et al , 2009. Large old trees have high historical, cultural, aesthetic, and spiritual values (e.g., Sherren et al 2012;Blicharska and Mikusiński 2014). People generally associate positive feelings toward large trees, because of their impressive size, shape, and age.…”

“…People generally associate positive feelings toward large trees, because of their impressive size, shape, and age. A typical example for such a recognition of the social-emotional value of the old trees is the various terms (e.g., 'veterans' or 'working trees' in UK), names or stories associated with them (e.g., Read 2000;Butler 2014;Sherren et al 2012). Finally, large, old trees are information bearers about the past climatic and environmental conditions, ecosystem functions, and human management interventions on the tree, such as pollarding, coppicing (Rackham 1986;Babst et al 2014).…”

Appraising offsets as a tool for integrated environmental planning and management

“…The precision of complex offsets valuations can present a challenge as they combine factors such as land area, comparable biodiversity condition, habitat quality, and management expertise, using composite estimates (Latimer and Hill, 2007;Norton, 2009;McKenney and Kiesecker, 2010;Sherren et al, 2012;Gardner et al, 2013). In addition, net present value calculations may apply discount rates that vary from 2-14% depending on program and risk factors (Overton et al, 2013;Alvarado-Quesada et al, 2014).…”

Using offsets to mitigate environmental impacts of major projects: A stakeholder analysis

“…In particular, the combination of complex factors (e.g. offset land area, comparable biodiversity condition) (Latimer and Hill, 2007;Norton, 2009;McKenney and Kiesecker, 2010;Sherren et al, 2012;Gardner et al, 2013) and net present value calculations (e.g. discount rates vary from 2-14% depending on scope and risk factors) for multi-year offsets projects (Overton et al, 2013), challenges consistent and precise valuations.…”